Crash

This financial thriller from bestseller Hagberg (the Kirk McGarvey series) and financial journalist Light, a sometimes uneasy mix of Wall Street business and hard core action, presents a frightening doomsday scenario. Cassy Levin works in cybersecurity at the Manhattan headquarters of Burnham Pike, the nation’s premier investment bank, and has discovered a computer worm that she believes will destroy BP’s system and then spread to trading floors worldwide. Meanwhile, top executives at BP, who introduced the worm, and Spencer Nast, the American president’s White House chief adviser on economic affairs, are plotting to crash the world economy, starting with the New York Stock Exchange, in order to enrich themselves. Cassy, who can’t get anyone at BP to listen to her, confides in her fiancé, former Navy SEAL Ben Whalen, shortly before the bad guys kidnap her. Ben’s efforts to rescue Cassy ratchet up the suspense. Readers should be prepared for some mini-economics lessons, including an afterword on the “debt bomb” by Light. The novel’s awkward structure undercuts its sobering message. Agent: Susan Gleason, Susan Gleason Literary. (Apr.)